


Does It Matter, the How?

by sanssssastark



Series: Life After Death [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Just a little ficlet, but alex wants to know how, happily ever after or gtfo, luke doesn't care how, the boys come back to life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28150023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanssssastark/pseuds/sanssssastark
Summary: Alex asked how it happened though and Luke doesn’t know the answer beyond something to do with Caleb and the souls he’d stolen. Maybe the universe was simply righting itself. Who knows? He’s okay with not knowing the how. He definitely knows the answer to another question, though. Why?He knows why he’s in the here and now.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: Life After Death [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2079297
Comments: 12
Kudos: 140





	Does It Matter, the How?

**Author's Note:**

> I was taking some Tumblr prompts this weekend and figured I should post them here too so all my JATP fic is in one place. This isn't much more than a drabble, but I am very much Team Happily Ever After or GTFO Because We Deserve Nice Things, so here's a nice thing.

“How do you think it happened?”

Alex doesn’t have to clarify what it is. All of them know what it is. It is the blood coursing through their veins, the air in their lungs, the warmth of the sun on their skin, getting tired after a long day, a passing grin at the person walking opposite them on the sidewalk, petting a friendly dog at the park.

It is life.

“I don’t know, man” Luke says, with a small shake of his head. They’ll probably never know. Not really. The things they’ve been through in the last few months—how has it only been a few months?—the people they’ve come to know and love as family, the evil they faced and defeated. It’s beyond belief. Beyond anything he ever dreamed of. He thought they had two choices: cross over or stay a ghost forever, unfinished business forever unfinished.

Turns out their unfinished business was pretty simple: to live out their lives, just like they always dreamed.

Their unfinished business was just existing.

Alex asked how it happened though and Luke doesn’t know the answer beyond something to do with Caleb and the souls he’d stolen. Maybe the universe was simply righting itself. Who knows? He’s okay with not knowing the how. He definitely knows the answer to another question, though. Why?

He knows why he’s in the here and now.

She’s a tiny thing, really. Small in his arms belying her wrecking ball of a voice and the brilliance of her mind, her hair spilling over his chest the dark curls twisting over the white of his t-shirt, tickling his face. They’re on his couch, stretched out over it, legs entwined together. Alex is just across from him, slouched into the chair, Willie on the floor, his head against the drummer’s knee and Reggie’s in the corner, drifting to sleep in his hammock, hung in the corner of the studio, a gift from Ray when he realized that the cocoon of material made their bassist feel safe at night.

And, of course, there’s Julie. Sound asleep in his arms, something he knows he should do soon, but he’s enjoying this too much. The weight of her against his body, the rise and fall of her chest, the swell of her breasts pressed against him, her breath at his neck, her fingers splayed over his heart, as if its beat lulled her to sleep. Maybe it did. 

This part isn’t entirely new. Touching her. He’d been able to since the first time they thwarted Caleb, that night at the Orpheum, when her love and their music drew them to safety and then kept them from being jolted out of existence. Covington’s nothing but a memory now, almost like a bad dream. Touching Julie was both everything he wanted and the thing that terrified him the most in the world back then, maybe even more than crossing over. Because touching her meant their interesting little relationship wasn’t impossible. Not impossible. Just…way less than she deserved.

So he tried to keep his distance. As much as he could stand. He’d always been a tactile person though, even before he died, so sometimes, despite his best efforts, he’d reach out and wind one of her curls around his finger, fascinated by the silky tendrils and how they’d bounce right back into shape when he released them or his hand would tangle with hers as they sat, heads bent together writing a new song and sometimes she’d fall against him, forehead to his chest or shoulder, in frustration or exhaustion or maybe those were her excuses. God knows he made up enough of his own to justify the most insignificant contact that was anything other than insignificant to his heart.

His heart that has a beat now. A pulse, pumping blood through his veins. Alex wanted to know how, how they’re alive again, but Luke doesn’t give a shit. He has a body. He’s breathing. And the girl he loves more than anything else in this world is in his arms. He’s pretty sure she’s his soulmate. Before he died Luke never believed in fate or any of that bullshit. He lived for the moment, took everything as it came, but now? 

Now he knows better. 

He had to die. He had to spend twenty five years in a dark room, the world passing him by in a blink. He had to haunt her studio. He had to make the most incredible music with her, music he never would have made if he’d survived that night, a love he never would have found if he and the boys took the stage at the Orpheum in 1995.

He’d told her once and he meant it then. He means it even more now.

He has no regrets.

“Does it really matter, the how?” he whispers to his bandmate.

Alex sends a glance down to Willie, who, after everything, decided to stay with them and found himself with a brand new heartbeat of his own and smiles. “No.”


End file.
